You may have had this problem before: an idea for a story bubbles and boils, ready to explode from the cauldron of your mind and onto the paper or computer screen. But when you get to your desk you’re clueless to how to start writing the story. Or if you do start writing then you come to a halt not even midway through the draft, like when you’re driving a car and then it suddenly dies on you. That’s definitely happened with my writing , especially my fiction, and it’s frustrating as hell. You start with an idea or event for a story, such as an alien plague attack or a stolen talisman (which are not really original ideas but are simply examples I’ll use for the sake of argument) but have no idea where to go with it when you try to write. Sometimes you may not have that problem because, for whatever reason, you already have one of the most important elements of the story in mind--character. However, a lot of times we don’t have our main character, or protagonist, in mind at the...
A blog about reading and writing science fiction, fantasy and horror and their influence on pop culture.